The Rock considered training to become UFC fighter about 10 years ago

Dwayne Johnson, the hugely popular Hollywood actor and former WWE star, at one point considered transitioning to mixed martial arts, he told comedian Jim Norton and Matt Serra on the UFC Unfiltered podcast Thursday.

About a decade ago, Johnson said he had already pretty much done everything there was to do in the world of pro wresting. He was a former WWE champion and one of the biggest draws in the history of sports entertainment. The Rock left WWE in 2004 to embark on a movie career, but that wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped.

“There was a time there where I thought, man, I achieved everything I wanted to achieve in WWE, my movie career is floundering a little bit, what do I do?” Johnson said. “I was relatively still young, I think I was 34. I thought, oh well maybe UFC. Maybe I should do something like that.”

Johnson, now 44, said he caught the first-ever UFC when he was still in college. But football was his primary focus at that point. He was a defensive lineman for the University of Miami with designs on a pro career. Pro wrestling was always a possibility for him, Johnson said, because it was the family business. His father and his grandfather were pro wrestlers.

The Rock was a force of nature in WWE. But, with his competitive juices likely flowing, wanted to excel at another athletic endeavor about 10 years ago. Not unlike Brock Lesnar and his transition to MMA after a wildly successful WWE career. CM Punk is attempting to do the same thing right now.